Winter. Still comfort food days and nothing is more comforting than Blueberry Coffee Cake. This one has a big punch of lemon, which makes it bright and clean.
fruits-and-berries
These are Lemon Bars. Well, to be more precise, they are Olive Oil Sea Salt Meyer Lemon Bars with Rosemary. In my infinite search to “do something different” (I think that they call that “intensify the depth of flavor” in the recipe development biz), I decided to add some fruity and bright olive oil to the curd, finely chop some fresh rosemary and put it in the shortbread and then add just a touch of sea salt to the sprinkle on top (with the powdered sugar). Result: the most intense and flavorful lemon bars you’ll ever taste. Seriously.
Every week I make something that can be eaten “out of hand” (i.e. cookies, brownies, etc), but this week was a bit of an uninspired week, and somehow I wasn’t ready to bake something this afternoon, so just ended up making something with ingredients that I had in the house. Ended up being these Apricot White Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies, with Toasted Pine Nuts. Still good for a snack on on a cold January.
With the abundance of Meyer Lemons this time of year, I thought that I would indulge in some more citrus to perk up January. The trick to this Tea Cake was to make small “dollops” of both lemon curd and raspberry jam by freezing them overnight. That means that the flavor drops stayed intact when I put them in the batter. Little pockets of goodness!
I always wonder what to do with pears. They were on sale this week, being a typical winter fruit with a long(er) shelf-life, but then I ponder on what to do with them. This time I pondered nearly too long, so they were getting a little soft, which … turns out … is actually quite ideal for making preserves. Small batch.





